Mariticide
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mariticide (not to be confused with matricide); from the Latin maritus (married) & cidium (killing), literally means the murder of one's married partner, but has become most associated with the murder of a husband by his wife.
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[edit] Notable instances
[edit] Historical
- Heather Osland drugged and had her son kill her husband in 1991, creating a test case for the 'battered woman syndrome' defense in Australia.[1]
- In 1995, Lilian Getkate shot her husband dead while he slept.[2]
- Thao Thi Tran was spared a jail sentence for stabbing her husband to death for the sake of her three children.[3]
- Liysa Northon shot her husband in the head during a camping trip and pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2001. The motive was apparently to collect on her husband's life insurance policy. For years leading up to the murder, Liysa concocted a series of stories and self-inflicted injuries to support the idea that she was being abused by her husband.[4]
- Katherine Knight murdered her de facto husband by stabbing him, then skinned him and fed pieces of him to his children.[5] She was sentenced to life in prison, but her rejected appeal said that the sentence was too severe for the crime.[6]
[edit] Fictional and mythological
- In Greek mythology, Clytemnestra murders her husband Agamemnon as an act of vengeance for the murder of their daughter Iphigeneia, and to retain power after his return from Troy. In Aeschylus' Oresteia the Erinyes consider Orestes' matricide a greater crime than Clytemnestra's mariticide since the killing of a spouse does not shed familial blood.
- In Greek mythology, Thyestes had an affair with Atreus' wife, Aerope. To get revenge, Atreus killed Thyestes' sons and served it to his brother, Thyestes, at a banquet. After learning he ate his own sons, Thyestes goes to an oracle to learn how to seek revenge.
- In Greek mythology, the amazons were said to kill men they partnered with after conceiving.
- In the musical Chicago, the killing of husbands is humorously celebrated by the incarcerated women in the song "Cell Block Tango".
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/vic/content/2005/s1420450.htm
- ^ http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/oc981111.htm
- ^ http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/husband-killer-freed-for-childrens-sake/2005/06/24/1119321902679.html
- ^ Heart Full of Lies, by Ann Rule, ISBN 0-7434-1013-0
- ^ http://www.australian-news.com.au/Media/Regina_v_Knight.htm
- ^ http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Knight-life-sentence-appeal-fails/2006/09/11/1157826846642.html
[edit] See also
- Uxoricide, the practice of killing one's wife
